


This chapter is weird

by alutea



Series: Infinite Jest: Third Time Will Be the Charm, Maybe [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Essays, Gen, Infinite Jest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27369709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alutea/pseuds/alutea
Summary: Who the hell even knows?
Relationships: David Foster Wallace's brilliant mind/Reader
Series: Infinite Jest: Third Time Will Be the Charm, Maybe [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1991284





	This chapter is weird

Chapter 3 - 1 April - Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad

So Hal turns out to be even more of a genius than we saw in Chapter 1; at 11? 10? 14? he has swallowed dictionaries and speaks with more facundity and authority than I ever will. He can hold his own against a "professional conversationalist," a job description which appears to = psychologist + CIA agent. 

The conversationalist was paid by Himself (Hal's dad) but mentions "her" as an aside--his mom? and seems to have an agenda apart from both of them where he's convinced Hal's family is involved with the "pan-Canadian Resistance's notorious M. DuPlessis," another real character, and caused the murders of two people associated with the real-life German news magazine _Der Spiegel_. 

...And who then turns out to be Hal's dad. And either Hal is hallucinating or the conversationalist/his dad is hallucinating or basically there's no reality that connects the two of them.

There's (playful...?) menace and a _Face/Off_ kind of horror and talking past each other and twists and turns and...

Is this a metaphor for a father and son who have lost connection with each other and have no idea how to get it back?

The only thing worse than an unreliable narrator is: two unreliable narrators.

I realize that there's a question I haven't asked: should I even be expecting a plot?

I give up on this chapter until it fits into anything at all. I need a corner piece. Next!

Stuff DFW made me look up:

  * amanuensis [n] - One who is employed to take dictation or to copy manuscript.
  * alpenstock [n] - A long staff with an iron point, formerly used by mountain climbers.
  * Albertan Secret Guard - fictional
  * Jivaro [n] - a member of a group of sub-tribes native to the Amazonian forests of Peru and Ecuador, formerly noted for their warlike nature and head-shrinking rituals
  * priapistic [adj] - Persistent, usually painful erection of the penis, especially as a consequence of disease and not related to sexual arousal.
  * anaplastic [adj] - Relating to the surgical restoration of a lost or absent part. / Of or characterized by cells that have become less differentiated.
  * gastrectomy [n] - Surgical excision of part or all of the stomach.
  * prostatectomy [n] - Surgical removal of all or part of the prostate gland.
  * pancreatectomy [n] - surgical removal of the pancreas
  * phallectomy [n] - Surgical removal of the penis.



Wow, does that seem designed to make all the male readers wince or what?


End file.
